I'm Back!

As usual, I did not intend to take a week and a half off blogging, but, well, since when do any of my plans really go the way I intend.

The Bishop and his wife were lovely. The weekend they were here, as you can imagine, was packed chock full. Friday night we had them here-fancy crostinis with mascarpone and blue cheese on some, and Micah's amazing hummus on others, with olives and roast red peppers on top to start, followed by salmon poached in a sauce of mayonnaise, wine, dijon, fresh dill and lemon, thinly sliced crisped in the oven potatos, salad, and for dessert, baked strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and peaches with cream or mascarpone on top. On the whole I think the food came out beautifully. The children were practically angelic. I don't know how I can complain about them any more because they were so golden-shaking hands, conversing politely, not throwing food, being helpful...now I'm bragging.

Saturday was a marathon run of touring the grounds, lunch, confirmation and vestry meetings, bible study, choir practice and finally a very fancy dinner out at the Kilmer Steak House here in Bing, which is the one place Matt and I choose to go if we go anywhere. I had the Shepherd's Pie and it was so delicious I found myself speaking French.

Sunday was an extravaganza of confirmation and food afterward. Boy, now that I think about it, we really just ate our way through the weekend.

Not surprisingly I lay on the floor on Monday and Tuesday and then Thursday. The children all either have allergies or a cold. Either way we're kind of stumbling along over piles of laundry and deeply grateful that we don't live on the lavish scale every day.

I've been trying also to tweak our vaguely disfunctional homeschool life. I've settled on Elphine getting into bed with me very early in the morning (she's a raving morning person and I am not) and reading to me while I try to wake up with tea. In this manner she is fresh and I am relaxed and she reads beautifully, rather than struggling with each other in the late afternoon. Then we do morning chores and carry on with the day as normal, only without the threat of reading over our heads. We do a sort of variable circle time with The Word of the Day, and This Day in History (I'll leave it to you to google, Cirlce Time comes from Preschoolers and Peace), and then the bulk of our memory work. Then lunch or something, and then math and other reading. It seems to be sort of going along.

But, if you want to know the Real reason I haven't been blogging its because we are happy to announce the news that another Kennedy Bun is on the way. We're so excited we can hardly stand it. All our family evenings are now given to trying to think of a suitable name, and arguing over whether it is a boy or a girl. So far my chidlren are lined up along the side of 'Jane' and 'Ted'. I have no idea where these preferences come from. As for me, I am totally sick-So Sick-I vowed to myself I would not complain, so I try to smile cheerfully as I lie dismally on the floor and direct traffic. But really, I've been complaining all the time. I'm probably about 7 weeks along but I haven't been to the doctor yet so I don't know.
'When will we have 100 children?' Alouiscious wanted to know yesterday.
'I don't know,' I said, 'why don't we start with 5?'
'Or ten' said Elphine, 'let's have 10'.
'Well, right now we're having five, that's a lot'.
'I guess,' they said.